Album Review: Malcolm Black – Songs For The Family
Malcolm Black is best known to most of us for the 1985 Netherworld Dancing Toys anthem For Today but in the years since his has significantly contributed to NZ music as a A&R director, Entertainment Director, Manager of Neil Finn, label co-owner and more. This album was born from a rush of creativity in 2018 […]
Album Review: Squid – Bright Green Field (Warp)
There is research that shows that people driving and listening to techno music drive a bit faster, and that people driving most safely are probably listening to Norah Jones. If you notice a driver near you spin into reverse, turn on all their lights, speed up and overtake you before slamming on the brakes and […]
Album Review: Spawts – Clicks & Whistles
Wandering off into uncharted territory, SPAWTS release their newest EP, Clicks & Whistles, showcasing their new direction of melody, composition and instrumentation which seems to have worked a bloody charm.
Album Review: Iron and Wine – Archive Series No. 5: Tallahassee Recordings (Sub Pop)
In the nineteen years since the release of his first album The Creek That Drank The Cradle, Sam Beam, better known as Iron and Wine, has moved from his neo folk beginnings to incorporate elements of R&B, Jazz and Electronica. He has also released collaborations with Jessica Hoop, Calexico and Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses).
Album Review: Luke Haines – Setting the Dogs on the Post Punk Postman (Cherry Red)
By the time you are in your fifties it’s good to have been shortlisted for the Mercury prize, appeared on Top of the Pops and written a critically praised autobiography. Luke Haines has done all of these, he was the lead singer of The Auters, who missed out on the Mercury Prize to Suede in […]
Album Review: Chris Cain – Raisin’ Cain (Alligator)
Blues man Chris Cain’s latest, Raisin’ Cain is a helluva knockout album.
Album Review: Julia Stone – Sixty Summers (BMG)
This is an album that begins and ends with a dance. This may be surprising as Julia Stone is most well known as half of the folk pop duo with her brother Angus Stone and her outstanding ability to play the trumpet one handed whilst holding a guitar. The folk lyrics of love, the trumpet, […]
Album Review: Fleetwood Mac – Live (Super Deluxe Edition) (Rhino/Warners)
Upon seeing that the Fleetwood Mac had a mammoth 35 tracks, three-CDs and 2 LPs long live special edition coming out, one may ask, why? But then the first notes of Monday Morning hit and we remember because, nothing in the entire world beats live music and nothing beats Fleetwood Mac in their prime.
Album Review: Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi – They’re Calling Me Home (Nonesuch)
Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi are staking out their own genre. Drawing on music from different places and centuries they have created an album that serves as a guide to making sense and surviving during these times of pandemic and isolation.
Album Review: L7 – Wargasm: The Slash Years 1992-1997 (Cherry Red)
With Smashing Pumpkins, Alanis Morissette, Green Day and Foo Fighters still cranking out new albums, sometimes it feels as though the 90s never ended. So, what better time to revisit the output of one of that decade’s most underrated bands, L7.
Album Review: Sheep, Dog & Wolf – Two Minds (Aphrodite)
Sheep, Dog & Wolf is the artistic name adopted by Daniel McBride, whose Two Minds ends a seven year hiatus. These songs are in equal part chants and poems set to complex and deliciously repetitive rhythms. The eight-track song cycle is exquisite and, as a collection, feel like invitations into expansive meditative and emotional landscapes.
Album Review: Flock Of Dimes – Head Of Roses (Sub Pop)
Wye Oak singer, songwriter, producer and multi-skilled instrumentalist Jenn Wasner released her second album as Flock Of Dimes this month. Head of Roses is a collaborative effort conceived and born during the pandemic lockdown, when she had time to delve introspectively into her broken relationship/s. The result – a beautifully cathartic dance of sorrow, pain […]
Album Review: The Antlers – Green To Gold (Anti-)
If you’re waiting for The Antlers’ Green To Gold, to rock out, well don’t.
Album Review: Haunted Shed – Faltering Light (Strolling Bones)
Haunted Shed is debuting their first album Faltering Light, but singer/songwriter Etienne De Rocher is no stranger to the music scene. After a brief hiatus and shift from San Francisco’s West Coast he moved to Athens, Georgia with wife Maria and their two children where he discovered new musical influences culminating in a new band and […]
Album Review: Chris Cornell – No One Sings Like You Anymore Volume One (UMe)
Chris Cornell, who many believe to be the ‘Founding Father of Grunge’, self-recorded a fifth and final solo album in 2016. And with a suggestive term such as Vol.1 hanging off the album’s title, could there be another down the road?
Album Review: The Routes – Mesmerised (Action Weekend)
Opening track Broken Goods off The Routes newest LP Mesmerised hits you hard and hits you strong with a thundering, reverb-soaked drum groove followed shortly after by a gnarly guitar riff, bass and scattered vocals dipping hard into garage punk that echo from their turf in Hita City, Japan.
Album Review: Be-Bop Deluxe – Drastic Plastic: The Esoteric Recording Edition (Cherry Red)
Spare now, a thought, for Be-Bop Deluxe, a hugely talented, widely forgotten band from the 1970s led by Bill Nelson, a man who, at the time, seemed strangely out of time.
Album Review: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Way Down In The Rust Bucket (Reprise)
Neil Young continues cranking out Archive releases at an astonishing pace ( I think another, titled Young Shakespeare, has just been let loose). But this 4-disc (on vinyl) takes time to get through, so here we are…Neil & The Horse, December, 1990.
Album Review: Adam Hattaway and the Haunters – Woolston,Texas
Adam Hattaway and the Haunters‘ new album, Woolston,Texas is rock’n’roll wrapped in Americana with an intoxicating rush of soul, romance and high spirits. At its core is songwriter, guitarist and lead singer Adam Hattaway, who sounds like he was raised listening to the King of Celtic Soul, Van Morrison.
Album Review: Bob Dylan 1970: With Special Guest George Harrison (Columbia)
Flog off your copies of Self Portrait and New Morning, this 3-disc (CD) set will render those two Dylan releases irrelevant.